Journey to Babel – Amanda's Meditation
by aurado
Summary: Prior to Sarek's surgery, when any hope of recovery seems vain, Amanda thinks of her family and of her failures. Bittersweet memories of the past. Chapter 3 added. Vulcans and Love.
1. Chapter 1

**Journey to Babel – Amanda's Meditation**

**by**

**aurado**

**Summary: Prior to Sarek's surgery, when any hope of recovery seems vain, Amanda thinks of her family and of her failures. Bittersweet memories of the past. **

**Chapter 1**

Upon the insistent request of the Chief Medical Officer, Amanda had left her husband's bedside and stood motionless on the observation deck. She wasn't observing anything really. She simply stood there, her hand still stinging with the slap she had inflicted her son earlier that day.

It shouldn't be still burning, after such a considerable amount of time, but she could not avoid to distinctly feel the horrible physical sensation lingering there. And much more with it.

Pain. Anguish. Impotence. Anger. Remorse. Guilt. Failure.

_Pain_ was the least she could feel when watching her _ashayam_, the love of her life, suffering and struggling on the brink of death.

_Anguish_ was subtly shooing hope away, while her heart started anticipating the emptiness, the desperation that would follow her _Adun_'s departing, should McCoy's therapy fail.

A grievous sense of_ impotence_ kept assaulting her for failing in convincing her son to save his father. She feared to have lost any connection with her only son. Usually alien to profanity, at that moment she felt the right thing to describe it all was that _she had screwed the whole thing up_.

Inadequacy and grief fueled her _anger_. Anger at herself. Anger at Spock's apparent impassibility. She knew it had been apparent, but to her, his resolution had felt like solid rock.

But, only moments later,_ remorse_ and _guilt_ flooded again her soul. And she felt so base and undeserving for striking and hurting Spock, _her _Spock, the child she had longed for so much, who had been fighting for his right to _be_ and to _live_, since the earliest instants of his existence. The son she had so many times wished to console, to soothe, to protect from the harshness of life.

Such wild thoughts, the unmerciful stream of consciousness, unhurriedly unravelling through her mind, were also slowly bruising and poisoning her self esteem, her judgement on past and present things. She knew to be weak, to have neglected food and rest and struggled to react.

She desperately wanted to chase the next thought well away from her mind, but it took eventually shape in a most feared word, which found inescapably its way to the surface of her conscience and stood there, in her drained mind, written in bright capital letters.

FAILURE.

The word tormented and mocked her, assuming the hundreds faces of those who had declared her crazy, when she had joined her life with Sarek's.

Those who had tried to dissuade her, those who had openly censored her, those who had merely turned away disgusted, those who had paled and shivered, those who had needed an effort to congratulate, those who had giggled and talked behind her back and those who had called her a Terran whore, all of them labelling her marriage as improper or shameful and anyway doomed.

Were they right?

Oh, God, it hurt so...she had never thought, not even in the throes of _pon farr_, not even in her long barrenness, to admit failure in choosing Sarek.

But, today, her husband dying, her son so distant, her good faith screamed that reality _had_ to be acknowledged.

"What is is", Sarek would have certainly reminded her. _C'thia_. The reality of things.

And so this failure had to be acknowledged and accepted

Failure for choosing in her youth a path that was in itself revolutionary… and new… and thrilling… and fulfilling, but that had ultimately led to wounds difficult to heal. Still open and bleeding after years.

A husband estranged from his own son. A son who could not belong anywhere, rejected by half his heritage, rejected by his father, refused and humiliated by his bondmate and bride….accepted by his human friends, but, at the same time, keeping himself distant and aloof from humanity.

"Humans smile with so little provocation" Spock had stated just a few hours before… as if he were no human at all. Not even half human. As if he were not her son.

But she could read him, in spite of all his control. And today she had read, once more, hidden pain and regret, when he had told her he hadn't come home for four years to avoid meeting his father.

And in spite of those many years, in spite of Spock's resignation, in spite of Sarek's stubbornness, in spite of everything, a reminiscence kept coming to her mind unrecalled.

It was the memory of a child, seen through his bedroom door left ajar, a bowl of black shining hair on his head, sitting at his desk, his mind absorbed in concentration, his hands moving rapidly on a screen.

Beside him a glimpse of a taller person, eyes perfectly matching the child's, focused on the same screen, sitting close enough to glance at the computer and to touch the pad every now and then, adding a contribution .

The adult would sometimes nod, some other speak to the child, too low for her to catch the exact words, but steadily and patiently. The child would sometimes raise his eyes to the adult's and answer a question or state a hypothesis, equally placidly. She managed to guess they were talking about codes, the most recent of the child's interests.

And while she peeped through the ajar door, there was contentment humming through her marital bond.

And protection and participation and connection and…paternal satisfaction.

Spock was five at the time, he hadn't begun attending a public school yet and was being instructed privately at home.

Humiliation, rejection, prejudice had not entered his life yet.

His parents were _proud_ of him. The both of them.

"I'd prefer another guide", Sarek had coldly declared, regal in his ambassadorial robes, at Captain Kirk's proposal of a tour of the ship led by his First Officer. This time, his gaze had carefully avoided his son's eyes, had in fact almost avoided his whole person.

As if he did not exist. As if Sarek were not a father anymore.

Amanda, at Sarek's side, their fingers joined in the _ozh'esta_, had felt her heart ache.

But her smile had not faltered.

_**To be continued**...Amanda's meditation does not end here and other memories are ready to be published, if you liked these ones_

_**Author's Note**: This is my first fanfiction and I am not a native speaker. Moreover, the draft was not supervised by any English mother tongue beta-reader. Please condone my blunders, which, in spite of my carefulness, you will surely find in the text. Review and encourage me. Thank you. Aurado_


	2. Chapter 2

**Journey to Babel – Amanda's Meditation**

**by**

**aurado**

**Summary: Prior to Sarek's surgery, when any hope of recovery seems vain, Amanda thinks of her family and of her failures. Bittersweet memories of the past. **

**CH. 2 ADDED. A MEMORY OF S/A BOND**

**Chapter 2**

Babel was still far. Myriads of constellations, some white, some bluish, some crimson, kept flowing silently, out of the huge glass wall, on the observation deck.  
A trek of stars that would have been so wonderful to observe, if only circumstances had been different.

But Amanda had no heart to look at them.

Today, galaxies and nebulas only reminded her of Sarek and Spock.

Of her first weeks in Shi'khar, when Sarek patiently had tried to teach her where the sun, _her _Sun, could be found among the thousands of stars dotting the Vulcan sky.

Of the many long hours spent on the High Terrace of their mansion at home, listening to a know-it-all eight year old, who could name the constellations one by one.

Turning her head abruptly away from the offending nebulas, Amanda stared into the dark, her eyes too dry to cry, due to past tears and to sleep deprivation, her lips to tight to sob.

Mechanically she straightened up, ironed with her hands the folds of her gown and checked her _chignon_ for any loose strand.

She tried to breathe deeply and to employ some Vulcan meditation to empty her mind and find some peace. But the calm green eyes of him who taught her to meditate immediately flashed through her mind, disrupting any attempt at blanking memories out.

Resigned, she let the dam of thoughts flood her again. "I cannot think of anything else" she thought pragmatically. "Or better, I can't think of _anyone_ else. My brain won't obey….don't know who's more obstinate in our family…" and a smile almost escaped her.

"They're both stubborn!" Captain Kirk himself had exclaimed, referring to Sarek and Spock, when in Engineering, after her husband's second denial of having his son as a guide of the ship tour.

Kirk had looked surprised, but perhaps not so much…

She had told a joke and defined their stubbornness "a Human trait", but Kirk, that was no fool, had certainly caught, in the remark, the clear hint of irony.

Amanda suspected his son's obduracy, no, let's say resoluteness, was somehow well known even among his shipmates.

And Sarek…well Sarek was certainly Spock's father in that…

He had unquestionably shown an _exemplary_ Vulcan tenacity against his son's choice of life and career.

Not even _eighteen_ years had softened his demeanour. Or not?

That he had not forgiven Spock was a fact.

But Amanda, in spite of being Human and having limited memory, had been noticing many other facts along the previous eighteen years. Facts at least curious. Though, if enumerated to Sarek, they would have been categorically dismissed as irrelevant.

How come he always seemed to know where the Enterprise was patrolling and when and where its crewmembers went on shore leave? Did the credit go solely to his ambassadorial privilege to read all that boring Federation stuff?

How come he had always learned about Spock's promotions and commissions, even before herself, who had been constantly in touch with their son? Only mere coincidence?

How come he had always refused to take and train, as his aid, another member of the family – one of Silek's sons, for instance- as it would have been only logical to do, on behalf of Vulcan and of their clan?

Such consideration sounded suspiciously, if not openly…_paternal_ to Amanda.

_Irrelevant_ as they might be, those little…could they be called _weaknesses?_ on Sarek's side, were definitely what still allowed Amanda to hope.

And on the ship, in spite of his playing the oh-so-strict Vulcan father, Sarek had offered her another of these pearls.

"You embarrassed Spock this evening. Not even a mother may do that.", he had patiently reprimanded her, when they were alone in their quarters, like a wise old teacher would have done with a schoolgirl.

"He's a Starfleet officer. He must command respect if he is to function" he had added.

And Amanda…no, she had certainly not lost the occasion of teasing Sarek, in fact had promptly accused him of "almost human pride" in his son.

A really saucy allegation.

Of course he had denied everything.

God, how close destiny had for once brought father and son!

And why had Sarek been so headstrong and refused to take advantage of such rare closeness, if only to talk, to explain, to look for a reconciliation…?

And how could the same destiny be now so cruel and separate the three of them even more?

But then, could she blame Sarek only?

What about herself?

Hadn't she herself asked Spock, that same day, to renounce his own Starfleet responsibilities, in order to save her husband?

Hadn't she told him that she would have hated him, if he had refused to break Starfleet regulations and had not assisted Sarek?

Hadn't she beaten him?

So who wasn't accepting Spock's choices? Sarek or herself?

She had been the first Human to marry a Vulcan.

The first woman to conquer an alien heart.

It had seemed so amazingly wondrous at first.

But then…

Had she been so selfish and not anticipated that her decisions would have affected not only herself but her children as well?

Had she been so young and superficial?

Had she been so blindly in love?

So…emotional?

So…Human?

She still remembered the joy she had felt in learning that a healthy new life was eventually forming inside her. That time, she was positive she had sensed _pride_ through her marital bond.

No, she surely could never forget how Sarek's eyes seemed to smile and glow with the news of his eventually _living_ child, after so many failed attempts.

A promise come true, a dream fulfilled.

She could not forget how, once in their bedchamber, far from the presence of the healers, he had embraced her tightly, but tenderly, how he had caressed her, first her hair, then her face, brushing lightly against her melding points, kissing softly her eyes, then her belly, with almost trembling hands.

She had sensed his contentment, his affection, his sense of being one with her, and now with their child.

At last he had made love to her, so slowly and carefully and only to pleasure her, repeating her she was his, and his alone, and she was his forever.

He had kept her in his arms all night long.

She realized, the morning after, that he hadn't slept at all, but had stayed awake, cuddling her, watching her, guarding her, as his most precious belonging.

As the Vulcan sun was rising in the sky, the bond was vibrating with such a unique unforgettable passionate chant.

The bond…yes...the _bond_…this amazing Vulcan wonder, which had been staying with her, in her mind, for almost forty years.

A channel to her beloved's mind, but also to his heart and soul.

A source of immense joy, peace and contentment.

The first sensations had been overwhelming.

She could not sense anymore the Embassy private garden around her, with its tall murmuring trees, she could not sense anymore the cold great stone bench she was sitting on, or the water gently splashing in the ancient fountain, or the soft breeze dishevelling her unbound hair and brushing her cheeks, she could not even sense the air she was breathing, all she felt were Sarek's fingers tracing a path of fire through her skin, her flesh, her soul.

And, after that, an explosion of colours, faces, vibrations, flavours, sounds, voices, shapes, sensations, images, recollections, all mingled and mixed together, melting one into the other.

For an instant, it was like going into warp without control.

Like falling without hitting the ground.

Heat, yellow, soft, passion, silence, cold, spicy, warmth, smooth, water, harmony, green, rough, pain, hard, blue, peace, desert, desire, small, red, wet, huge, mountains, black, sweet, beauty, space….

It was like spinning at high speed into a tunnel, where lights, sounds, tastes and thoughts incessantly exploded, dazzled, detonated, hit and stimulated her, leaving no clarity of mind for realization or awareness.

She had no time to feel scared.

There was no fear, no time, no space, no Amanda. Only confusion and existence.

Then something begun to take form in the middle of this twirling entropy.

A white spot, no…a glow…a ghost… a lighthouse in the tempest.

Suddenly a force held her, a strong hand caught hers, her wandering ceased.

A gentle guidance took possession of her thoughts.

She was again aware, she was again Amanda.

And she eventually saw him.

No, she…sensed him.

Among a jungle of maddened chains of thoughts. Hers.

She recognized him and she didn't.

It was him and it was not.

He was the same and he was different.

He was full, he was rounded, he was a solid form with many facets.

Where she had thought him empty, he was brimming; where he had been closed, she found him open; where he had been cold, he was warm; where he had been logical, he was passionate.

And, soon after, she felt a sense of possession and oneness, she could hardly breathe.

Existing and belonging became one.

Belonging became the essence of being.

And after that, she felt acceptance and peace.

And ultimately she felt…_affection_.

She opened her eyes and this time she truly _saw_ him.

They were still sitting on the stone bench.

The fountain was still splashing, the leaves were still murmuring.

His lips were still closed and his demeanour still serious as before.

But nothing was the same.

And, inside her head, he was murmuring an ancient song and was…smiling.

_Love is a human emotion, _Sarek had stiffly told her, at the beginning of their acquaintance, when they were still trying to understand the wideness of the gap between their own cultures.

After bonding with him, she had discovered that was an untruth.

**Author's Note**: _Thanks to those who read, to those who reviewed and to those who story-alerted and author-alerted. Your preference greatly moved and pleased me. I might write down another chapter, if you think it would be interesting, i.e. if you are not bored:)!_

_I re-read this chapter several times, but I am almost sure there are some verb tenses which are inappropriate. Always waiting to find a beta-reader. Have a good time._

_Ciao e grazie,__ belle bimbe. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Journey to Babel – Amanda's Meditation**

**by**

**aurado  
**

**Chapter 3**

On the Enterprise observation deck, Amanda's eyes kept idly perceiving unending sequences of stars and constellations, appearing and disappearing from her sight in a matter of seconds.

Millions of stars. God only knows how they were called…what worlds they belonged to…

...Sarek certainly would have known…

But Sarek was lying on a sickbay biobed…

…Spock too might have told her the names of the many stellar systems…

But Spock was far, far away from her…

Their, by then thin, parental bond completely silenced.

And yet, in spite of his absence, Spock's cutting words kept constantly resonating inside Amanda's head, with as great an insistence as his almost Human exasperation had been, while pronouncing them.

Amanda had gone to Spock's quarters to persuade him to temporarily relinquish command, in order to provide a blood transfusion for his dying father.

He had firmly refused on the grounds that the ship and its passengers were in great danger.

Had sounded truly regretful, but thoroughly inflexible.

"Mother, how can you have lived on Vulcan so long, married a Vulcan, raised a son on Vulcan, without understanding what it means to be a Vulcan?" he had eventually enquired.  
"If this is what it means, I don't want to know.", she had answered sharply.

She had tried again to convince him. But, in the end, at loss for words, she had slapped him.

No other reply had come to her lips, though a tangle of confused emotions was fermenting and boiling inside her.

Yes, she wondered, why couldn't she truly understand Vulcan philosophy?

Why couldn't she truly conform to logic?

Why couldn't she abdicate her emotions once for all?

Spock had _patiently_ explained to her the meaning to be Vulcan.

It was clear people considered necessary to mentor her these days.…..

"It means" he had said "to adopt a philosophy, a way of life, which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be."

Again Spock's words had hit her like a punch.

She had tried to remind him of his childhood's sorrows, she had appealed to his Human side, but, as to answering why she hadn't conformed to pure Vulcan philosophy, she had not been able to proffer a word.

Now, relishing the apparent stillness of the observation deck, where only some hours before Sarek had had the third of his heart attacks, without her even knowing, _a single word came to her lips_.

And after it a multitude of others, uncalled for….the dough of her thoughts had probably leavened…

Answers that her son would never have approved of.

Belated answers that she could not offer him anymore.

A _single word_. Four letters.

LOVE.

…_All you need is love__**[1]**_…they used to sing.

Have you ever been in love Spock?

Oh, the answer to your question would have been so simple, my son.

Love.

…what did the Poet write?

Love is… "…_an ever-fixed mark  
_ _That looks on tempests and is never shaken; _ _  
It is the star to every wandering bark"__**[2]  
**_

When you discover love, _real_ love, it will change you forever, my son.

It will shake your beliefs, it will break rules and conventions…

…as Dante wrote…

… "_Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving"_….

and poor Francesca was damned to always wander in the blowing winds_**[3]**_…

No, Spock. No Human being can deny mankind's true essence.

Is it _cogito ergo sum_? I am because I think? No.

Descartes' rationalism is clearly not enough for me.

I am because… _I feel_. And know not why it is so.

I know not why I love. And hope. And care. And struggle.

…_._ "_I hate and I love. _

_Why do I do it, perhaps you ask? _

_I don't know, but I feel it happening to me _

_and I am tormented"__**[4]**__._

This is Catullus, more than two thousand years ago and nothing seems to have changed, Spock.

Pain seems always to be mixed with love.

Love is our damnation.

And our blessing.

Spock, I wish you may be blessed one day.

Or you'll keep looking for answers in the stars.

And won't find any, satisfying you enough.

_Stars, you are unfortunate, I pity you,  
Beautiful as you are, shining in your glory,_

_Who guide seafaring men through stress and peril, _

_And have no recompense from gods or mortals,_

_Love you do not, nor do you know what love is_!_**[5]**_

But then, my son, friendship, you _do_ understand.

That, you cannot deny.

I was not there, my son.

And God only knows how much I would have longed to be there.

I would have killed to be there.

There with you, my son.

On those inhospitable ceremonial grounds.

But, T'Pau, she _was_ there.

And she _heard _you.

Yes, she heard you breaking all the rules of Vulcan etiquette.

She heard you disgracing yourself and begging, yes, begging, your hands joined in front of you, for your friend's life.

Not even the Fires stopped you from interceding for your captain and your friend.

The bystanders had their gaze fixed on you and were probably sniggering inside at your Human compassion.

Them bastards.

But you were insensitive to any outward influences.

Where were your Vulcan rules? Where your regulations?

Oh, my son, there's hope, there's still hope that you may one day understand the illogic of Love.

And that you may understand me.

But, then, what do I want to teach you, now?

What moral authority do I retain?

A Pharisee, a white-washed grave…

Just an undisciplined Terran woman, clinching to her emotions and…to love?.

And just now, when I should believe in Love more than in anything else, just now dare I doubt Love?

And I doubt your father's love for me.

And I doubt loving him was ever wise.

Amanda attempted to go back to the memories of the day she and Sarek had bonded.

Just to find some relief.

But the reminiscence wouldn't come back as clear as before.

And nor would the link sing.

Right now, what she sensed through the bond was a solid wall, beyond which she could at times perceive controlled physical pain.

She instead kept fishing, and in vain trying to get rid of, another card, from the pack of her past recollections.

A sneering nasty Joker, whose face would turn in that of a smiling Tracy.

Tracy telling her to renounce.

Tracy telling her Sarek was an alien

Tracy telling her Vulcans can't love

Oh, stop it Tracy! You have not been around these forty years, have you Tracy?

Tracy's memory had often come back to mock her in the nightmarish drowsiness of _pon farr_, but Amanda had graciously shooed her away…

But right now, on the Enterprise observation deck, Tracy came and questioned her mercilessly.

Was Sarek _really in love_ with her?

If yes, why had he done _nothing_ to repair the damaged relation with his son, when he knew how that gap pierced her to her core?

Why had he hidden his health condition, three heart attacks, to her, to his wife, she who was supposed to be the half of his heart and soul?

Did he truly consider her as he would have considered a Vulcan wife, not Vulcan by adoption, but Vulcan by heritage, blood, education and ..logic?

Or was she still a "child" in his eyes? A beloved being, but too emotional to rely on and thus to keep at dark when there were problems?

"Why didn't you tell me?" Amanda had asked Sarek, after his candid admission he had suffered from three previous heart attacks.

"There was nothing you could have done." He had matter-of-factly replied.

"The truth is he wouldn't have tolerated your Human worries, your tears and your fussing around" Tracy pressed her "He probably has had a hard work enough to put up with your _usual_ Humanness".

Oh Tracy, you are wrong, you do not know…you cannot know….

Amanda swallowed and managed to hold back the tears. Sarek loved her, he loved her for sure.

Tracy…

Amanda still remembered their last encounter, before she left Earth to be the wife of Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan.

"Come on, you cannot possibly marry him, Amanda!" Tracy had kept saying for an entire morning, while helplessly watching her childhood friend packing an entire house up.

During all her tirade, Amanda had gone on stuffing her many cases and crates, as if she weren't hearing her at all.

But she was listening and…controlling herself, lest she should send her best friend to hell.

Let us say, Amanda confessed to herself almost forty years later, that day I was probably unconsciously beginning to practise –without success- my imperfect Human control on emotional display.

"Come on, Amy, it is not in your temper! You, so sparkling and animated, married to a stone faced guy, it won't work. It cannot possibly work".

"See", she had continued, following her in the adjacent room "you don't even react anymore…has he already made a spell on you? Are you already _emotionless_?"

Surely her first attempt at controlling her reactions was proving unsuccessful.

"No, Tracy", she had retorted, while carefully accommodating her streaked leafed sanseveria in a special protective space-proof case. "it's you who are making a spell on me; in half an hour you succeeded in rendering me _deaf"_

"Oh Amanda, I'm sorry, I'm really trying to do my best to understand. But I cannot, Amy. You're my best friend after all"

"Indeed?" and she had scooped up a pile of folded clothes that she had previously discarded from her wardrobe.

"Amanda, you say Vulcans follow logic, choose logic over any other possible life path.

Well, this pairing is all but logical"

Amanda had thrown her load into another crate.

_You have a point, Tracy_, she thought,

_He is not doing this out of logic. But you wouldn't be able to understand. Nobody seems so brave to even take the chance to comprehend_.

Frustration, loneliness and the horrible feeling of being universally misunderstood were taking their toll on her.

"You cannot marry him" her friend had gone on mercilessly.

"Don't you see? It is not even in your _genes_. His blood is green, Amy. He is _alien_".

At those words, Amanda's fragile control had eventually broken.

She had turned around, her countenance tense, and, facing directly her listener, she had clearly articulated her words.

"Alien like different, alien like stranger, alien like diverse_. _Perhaps alien like _scaring"_.

So many years later, she still could recall how much disdain and distress had filled her own voice.

"Mankind fought battles in the past, in order to avoid that religious and ethnical groups, that women, that people with a different skin colour, that couples with different sexual orientation were considered inadequate or unworthy."

"And please stop calling me Amy. I surely don't even distantly resemble any of the March girls. Certainly I am not a tenth as innocent as they were. And I'm positive", she had finally remarked, "that bitching around with aliens was not their cup of tea."

Then she had sighed, had breathed deeply, had turned around again, opened a window and leaned wearily on the windowsill, inhaling the crisp air of the Terran fall.

Memories went unfolding in Amanda's mind, while she still haunted like a ghost the darkness of the observation deck.

That day her counterpart had not desisted.

Should she have listened to her and opted for a _normal _life?

For a while, Tracy had silently observed her friend's resignation.

"Ok, _touché_. Perhaps my words might have sounded racist" she had continued, lowering both her head and her voice.

"But I want you happy, Amanda. Heartily and sincerely. You can bet on it."

"And that's why I insist. This alliance is neither in your temper, nor in your genes and certainly not even in your _name. _You are a teacher, you know it yourself."

"_Amanda_, a Latin word, gerundive form, meaning _she who MUST be loved_. I just want that someone loves you, Amanda. And, for how much they might be intelligent, logical, peaceful, powerful, they _do not believe in love_. And I think…"

"What? What do you think?" Amanda had suddenly shouted.

Tracy had stopped dead.

Then Amanda's expression had changed, her face had somehow crumpled in an involuntary grimace.

She had walked to her great-grandmother sofa, covered with a white sheet and bound to Vulcan with the rest of her few heirlooms, had lingered there some seconds, and had heard confused words of apology coming out from her own mouth.

Tracy had remained silent.

Afterwards, Amanda would have thought her friend's expression had been one of great sadness.

But at that time, the Terran girl, going to be a _Vulcan wife, _had only been able to excuse herself and to ask her friend to leave her alone.

Unable to face another criticism.

Unwilling to cope with another disappointment.

From her best friend, as well as from the rest of the goddamn world.

_She needed time to focus on the tasks at hand and to eventually close her suitcases_, she had said coldly.

Or perhaps cowardly?

And her baggage had been indeed completed and sent for the spaceport during the following two hours.

But, her last piece of furniture departed, Amanda Grayson, standing still in the nude sitting room, had momentarily felt that, though her home lay emptied in front on her, Tracy's last words would have always remained carved in that room like in stone, resonating like an omen.

…_.they do not believe in love… _

And, for an instant, she had shuddered.

Hours after, on the luxurious spaceship flying warp towards Vulcan and the person she loved, while she had been sipping _alien _herbal tea and watching constellations passing by like shining dust, she had recovered her innate pragmatism, had forgotten everything about silly premonitions and even laughed about all her friends doubts and reproofs.

She had been so sure of Sarek's love then.

Or perhaps only forgetful of his _Vulcanness_.

Oh…she had been so sure of Sarek's love many times.

When they had bonded.

When she had journeyed to Vulcan to live with him.

When he had challenged his own family to have his bond acknowledged.

When they had conceived Spock.

And, on behalf of this love of his, a love never really expressed in words, she had loved him back.

Loved him dearly, loved him profoundly, loved him beyond her strength.

So overwhelmingly as to almost renounce her own self.

And so she learned the language of Vulcans.

Wore Vulcan robes.

Dressed her hair like a Vulcan woman.

And eventually educated her son like a Vulcan.

Married not only a man, but a whole culture.

With its harshness and its hardness.

With its logic and its madness…

With _kahs'wan_ and _pon farr_.

Forty years later … and was she was eventually reconsidering all her previous beliefs? Once so strong?

No.

Sarek's concealing his real health conditions was not a sufficient reason to doubt his attachment to her.

In fact, he had probably tried to protect her and to avoid her concerns and distress.

He had probably been sure that his healer's prescription would have been effective enough to control and correct his heart defect.

Hence, Sarek had only showed another of his thoughtful attentions towards her.

No, she wouldn't have been mad at him, when he had recovered from this illness….

…_when_?

It was more a matter of _if_.

She sat down and closed her eyes. She would have prayed, had she known to whom.

Minutes passed.

Amanda was slowly lulling herself in a dreamlike state…in a sort of trance, either keeping her eyes shut or watching the constellations and the blackness of space.

She tried to force her awareness back on the deck and she stood up.

She was so worn out, so exhausted, so nauseous and tired of fighting restlessly against prejudice, against conventions, against rules, against logic, against the member of her own family…and now even against illness.

She needed rest, she needed peace…

She longed to sit down again, but she stood still.

And unexpectedly… a vibration… a pulsation… a shuddering.

Her reverie ended brutally.

An acute pain startled her.

She almost stammered and fell to the ground.

A cry in her mind. _SAREK!_

The bond was aching, the bond was shouting.

Sarek was in pain. Was he dying?

A rush of adrenaline flooded her body.

_Wait for me, love. I'm coming._

And she ran out of the observation deck.

_**To be continued…?  
**_

**Author's note**: _my deepest gratitude to those who followed me so far. _

_My first original drafting of the story ends here. _

_This story precedes the JTB scene, in which Captain Kirk, himself wounded and in sickbay, asks McCoy how Sarek is and is answered that is not well. _

_During the first scenes in sickbay, Sarek is still conscious and talks with McCoy, Kirk, Spock, his wife and Nurse Chapel. Then we are shown this scene with Sarek lying unconscious on the biobed. _

_I placed Amanda's meditation between these two moments of Sarek's illness and imagined Amanda leaving him when he is still conscious, and hurrying back to him, when she feels his worsening through the bond._

_I hope literary quotes were not excessive, but Amanda was a teacher and I think a most gifted and refined one. I'm not classist, but I cannot imagine a person as cultured and of high-standing as Sarek marrying an ordinary Human woman. _

_Hope you enjoyed this. Any mistake is only mine. Have a good day._

* * *

[1] The Beatles.

[2] William Shakespeare, Sonnett CXVI - _Bark_ here stands for _boat_.

[3] Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto V. "_Amor che nullo amato amar perdona" _– Francesca is a character in Dante's Hell.

[4] Catullus_, "Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior"._

[5] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nachtgedanken (Night Thoughts), "_Euch bedaur' ich, unglücksel'ge Sterne, __Die ihr schön seid und so herrlich scheinet,Dem bedrängten Schiffer gerne leuchtet,Unbelohnt von Göttern und von Menschen:Denn ihr liebt nicht, kanntet nie die Liebe….."_


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